


it's only been a moment (it's only been a lifetime)

by ErinWrites417



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 2040 Felicity sees 2019 Oliver, 8x04 Rewrite-ish, Angst, F/M, One Shot, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 03:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21487420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinWrites417/pseuds/ErinWrites417
Summary: In the twenty years since Felicity lost her husband, she never imagined reuniting with him like this.OR the 8x04 re-write where 2040 Felicity is brought with Mia, William, and Connor to 2019
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 19
Kudos: 323





	it's only been a moment (it's only been a lifetime)

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't let this opportunity slip by to have Present-day Oliver meet Older Felicity. Just not possible.
> 
> Title is from Aqulio's Silhouettes

Despite her best efforts, Felicity just can’t shake the feeling something bad is coming down the pipeline. Not that bad things weren’t already happening almost every day lately, what with bombs under the city, Canaries dying left and right, and Archer being used to create super soldiers. But despite all that, something feels off, something she can’t put her finger on. The problem is Felicity doesn’t have wherewithal to sort it out right now.

Mia is pacing the Bunker, watching as Felicity and William hack into Eden Corp’s mainframe. Unfortunately, it’s taking more time than anyone had anticipated. Even with two people on this, it’s going to take time. Lots of time—time they don’t have.

Sirens blare and William glances over at the screen dedicated to security camera footage. Good god, they _definitely_ don’t have time for an attack on the bunker.

“What now?!” Connor calls with an aggravated voice.

The noise is loud, almost like an explosion, and it feels like her limbs are being pulled from her torso and her head is being crushed in a vice. Her vision is completely whited out, blinded by the brilliant light filling the Bunker. She screams, trying to clutch at her head. But she can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t even hear.

The pain is excruciating for just a split second before it’s gone. And then it’s quiet. Quiet except for the quiet whirring of a computer in the background. Though, that’s not her computer. She straightens immediately, her first concern for her children. She scrambles to look for William and Mia until a voice she hasn’t heard in years sets her heart pounding.

“What’s going on?”

She looks across the dais to four figures. But just one captures her attention.

He’s just as she remembers: young and perfect and _alive_. His eyes find hers like a homing beacon, skipping over everyone else like she’s the only person in the room.

Felicity's entire universe stops on a dime.

This can’t be real. Her mind races, sorting out scenarios in which this is possible. The first and most likely is that she’s dreaming, something she’s gotten used to over the years. It’s just that usually she wakes up after just a few seconds with him. She’s not waking up this time.

“Oliver.”

“Felicity?” he chokes, taking a halting step forward.

Twenty years later and the way he says her name still makes her stomach flutter. She gives him a once over before her eyes land on his left hand. His ring glints in the low light of the bunker and she clenches her left hand just to feel the cold metal of her ring against her skin, the edge digging into her palm.

In the chaos of her own mind, currently racing to make connections, she knows one thing: this is _her_ Oliver. Not some doppelganger from another earth, not a clone or a hallucination. This is the same Oliver she found bleeding to death in her car almost twenty-eight years ago. The same Oliver she kissed for the first time in a hospital hallway. The man she spent a summer of bliss with traveling the world. The Oliver she eloped with next to the ocean in Central City because the thought of losing him was too much to bear. The man she kissed goodbye forever while their daughter slept in the next room.

“Dad?” Mia whispers.

Oliver gapes at them, the gears in his head turning.

“Oh, my god, Dad!” William barely hesitates, as is his nature. He rushes toward Oliver and envelops him in a tight hug. A hug Oliver returns wholeheartedly. Oliver is the first to pull back, gripping William’s upper arms and looking into his face. Felicity realizes with a jolt that if she’s right about where (more importantly _when)_ they are, William and Oliver are practically the same age. Oliver had died at thirty-five and she’s sure this version of him is only months—likely just weeks—from that fate.

His eyes meet hers once more. It takes every ounce of strength she possesses not to run into his arms. He may be her Oliver, but he’s not _hers_, not really. Somewhere, her much younger self is aching for her husband to come home, looking for him to break through the trees or walk up the gravel driveway while her baby sleeps in the next room. No, Felicity can’t go to him the way she wants, not if she’s going to be true to the twenty-years she’s spent without him.

But she’s woman enough to know she has to touch him. She walks forward, shocked that her legs don’t collapse from under her. He watches her approach with bated breath, eyes wide. Once they’re just inches apart, she can’t help but reach up, feeling the leather of his suit under her finger tips for a brief moment before letting her palm find his jaw, her fingers brushing along his ear and along his cheekbone.

Oliver lets her caress his face, the tears in his eyes shining bright, her name on his lips. It’s the broken look in his eyes that snaps her out of her trance. She jerks her hand away and takes a step back, curling her hands into fists as she looks down, almost ashamed at her inability to control herself.

“Mom, what the hell is going on?” Mia snaps, breaking the silence. Oliver looks over Felicity’s shoulder to his daughter. He looks completely dumbfounded.

“Mia?” Her name tumbles from his lips sort of like a prayer, filled with awe and a little bit of pleading. When Connor tries to address John, Felicity hears John ask the money question, looking at Connor with complete confusion. “What is this? How did they get here?” John demands.

Felicity only has eyes for Oliver, who, incapable of controlling his emotions, chokes out an answer. “I don’t know. I don’t _know._”

When Oliver tries to step toward Mia, Mia hesitates, physically recoiling at his outstretched hand. His face falls even as he says her name, but Mia doesn’t give him the time of day. She wants answers. Now.

“How—how is this real?” Mia asks, urgency in her voice.

Felicity rips her gaze away from Oliver to look back at her daughter. Mia glances to her mom, looking for reassurance, anything that will explain the chaos they’re trapped in. Felicity has been the one to offer Mia answers her entire life, but Felicity doesn’t have words right now, let alone an answer. She shakes her head once; she’s just as lost as they are.

“Good question,” Rene intones, “the last time I checked you didn’t have an adult daughter. Or _any_ daughter. And your wife looked a hell of a lot different.” It’s almost accusatory, like he’s expecting Oliver to reveal some great lie.

Oliver looks at Felicity; tears fill his eyes and she recognizes the same pain in his expression he’d had the night he’d left with the Monitor. “We had a daughter. And we named her Mia,” he explains, “Felicity gave birth a few months after we left Star City.”

“How? I didn’t even know she was pregnant,” Dinah says in stunned disbelief.

Felicity responds this time. “We didn’t tell anyone. We wanted to keep her off the grid to protect her.” They’re the first words Felicity has really spoken since their arrival other than her husband’s name. Her voice is scratchy, coarse with emotion. Oliver stares at her, unblinking for a long moment. Then he swallows and lets out a harsh breath. “This is Novu,” he whispers, putting together two pieces of a puzzle only he understands.

While the others speak, sorting out what Felicity already suspects, Felicity stares at Oliver. He’s struggling to split his attention between her, William, and Mia, trying to figure out if his eyes are playing tricks on him or if this is all a dream. William’s voice draws Felicity back into the conversation.

“—and we are staring at our Dad—alive—instead of at his tombstone!”

Oliver can’t hide his shock at that, stuttering slightly as he tries to find words. William interrupts, “I’m sorry, what year is this?”

“It’s…it’s 2019. What year is it supposed to be?” Oliver asks, though his tone tells her he doesn’t really want to know.

“2040.”

The silence that follows is deafening.

“How is this possible? Without Barry?” he enquires, his question directed to Felicity. She laughs, breathless, just as confused as he is.

“Cosmic god? I guess anything is possible,” she replies, her tone still one of disbelief. Oliver turns, running his hand over his face and then through his hair in a gesture Felicity recognizes as one of stress. She has to fold her arms in an effort to physically stop herself from going to him, from comforting him.

Rene, Dinah, and William all start talking at once, trying to offer ideas and explanations in rapid-fire. John tries to silence them, but the chaos continues. Felicity’s head hurts and breathing is suddenly difficult. The moment is catching up to her and she just needs to talk to Oliver. Alone.

“Can we have the room?”

Her voice echoes through the space, quieting everyone.

No one questions why or wonders if they should stay. But she gives herself leave to be selfish, just for a moment, then their children can talk with him. Once the door closes behind Mia, silence fills the room. It stretches on and on and Felicity doesn’t know how to fill it, not when she has a thousand questions swirling in her head and can’t even chose one of them.

“Your haircut. I like it,” he says, so quiet she thinks for just a moment she imagined it.

She laughs. He says it like that’s all that’s different about her. Like she hasn’t aged twenty years, like she doesn’t also have wrinkles and grey hair and the aches and pains that come with aging. Like she hasn’t lived half her life without him.

“What?” he asks when she keeps chuckling, consternation in his voice. That just makes her laugh harder.

“This is ridiculous,” she exclaims, “It's _outrageous_.” Her laughing stops. Now she just huffs and turns away from him, incapable of inhaling his scent with every breath any longer.

“Believe me, I know,” he replies.

She paces over to the railing surrounding the dais. She feels his eyes on her, boring into her back. He just waits.

“Let’s start simple, shall we?” she says, turning back to him, gesturing to a group of chairs nearest to them. “Ask me what you want to know.”

“Can you tell me about them. Please?”

He’s silent as she talks, enraptured by her stories about raising Mia in the cabin. She only briefly touches on Mia’s childhood, the pain of his absence infinitely more acute with him standing across from her. But when Felicity mentions Mia’s angry departure from home, Oliver’s mouth tightens noticeably though he doesn’t say anything.

“We reconnected for jobs, some I fabricated just to keep tabs on her. I’m pretty sure she knows I made them up, but I had to make sure she was safe, even if she didn’t want to see me anymore. But that led me back to her and to William eventually, so I can’t be super angry about how it all turned out.”

“So they didn’t grow up together.” It’s not a question. He knows, but he wants the confirmation. She knows he’s looking for evidence of his own failures.

“No,” Felicity confirms. “After…after you were gone, taking him from a stable home environment felt cruel. Especially when I couldn’t offer him a life with the opportunities his grandparents gave him. The cabin sort of limited outside contact, Ivy League educations, the works,” she explains.

“And Mia,” he says, “she’s been gone for a while now.”

“Mia was never easy. Even when things were good, I could tell she was restless. And when she decided to leave home, I couldn’t stop her. She’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. Well, maybe second most,” she says with a sad smile. Felicity can’t do anything but watch him with wide eyes for just a moment. “She’s amazing. She’s just like you.”

Oliver runs a hand over his face, his anguish laid bare for her to see. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you. To carry that burden with you,” he whispers.

She takes his hand in hers and squeezes lightly before replying, “I’m sorry, too.” 

\------------------

When Oliver had left the cabin in Bloomfield, the Monitor had warned him this mission would challenge him in ways he couldn’t imagine. He’d ignored the warning, confident that after all he’d endured, he could handle anything thrown his way.

Good god, was he wrong.

Oliver had imagined William as an adult dozens of times, imagining the day when he’d leave for college or come to visit for holidays. At fourteen, William was careening toward adulthood faster than Oliver had liked. But Mia…Mia was barely three months old when Oliver left. He’d scarcely imagined her talking let alone wearing his quiver on her back, holding a bow as if it’s an extension of her arm—like he holds his own bow.

And Felicity. When he’d seen her, his stomach had dropped out, his chest tightening in the most familiar way. Her touch was _still_ electric. And were her eyes always that blue?

This shouldn’t be possible. The only way he should ever know his grown children and older wife is as a fifty-plus year-old man, not in his mid-thirties with his death looming in the near future because of _time travel_. This is, without a doubt, the most insane experience of his life, and that’s saying something.

He can’t help but watch his wife with wonder. The twenty years haven’t dulled the things he loves so much about her. Felicity Smoak is still beautiful and fierce, still whip smart and warm. But as he watches her, all he sees are the years of pain etched in her eyes. She’s so much more subdued than the Felicity he’d left behind, though he knows they’re the exact same person. An air of sadness surrounds her now, the years of grief and isolation his wife has endured evident in every move she makes.

She stews over something for a moment, the crease between her eyebrows making its appearance for the first time tonight. Oliver waits for her to ask her question, knowing something is swimming round and round in her head.

“How long?” she asks, and he doesn’t need her to clarify what she means.

“Two months. I’ve been gone for two months.”

She nods, swallowing once, trying to take a steadying breath. His chest aches as she swipes gently at the corners of her eyes before looking up at him once more.

Because for her, it’s been twenty years. The months of separation have eaten at his resolve, have nearly brought him to his knees countless times. Every single day he wakes up without her weighs on his chest like an anvil. But she’s lived without him for _twenty years_.

“It’s soon, isn’t it?” he asks. She nods, pressing a palm to her chest, like she’s trying to hold all of her emotions in, unable to meet his gaze. “How soon?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, Oliver.”

“I know. I know,” he assures her. “I’m just so sorry,” he whispers.

“You don’t get to apologize to me for saving the known universe, Oliver.” Her reaction surprises him. He’d expected anger or resentment and he would have deserved it. Instead he’s met with understanding and comfort. He’s stunned. “Oh, I’m still mad, but not at you. I spent so much of the year following your death angry and resentful. It took me years to accept that the anger I felt shouldn’t be directed at you. Now I’m just angry with the universe, with the people who let you sacrifice yourself when they should have done the same. You saved so many lives, Oliver. And you gave everything to do that. How can I be angry about the most selfless act the world has ever known?” Her hand returns to his cheek and her thumb strokes along his cheekbone. He gazes into her eyes, the same eyes he’s known and trusted for years, the same eyes he wishes he could look into every day for the next twenty years.

Her ring scrapes against his stubble and he reaches a hand up to cover hers, rubbing against the metal he feels there. He pulls her hand from his face to look at the ring, studying it with a discerning eye. Small divots and imperfections mar the surface, evidence of years of wear.

“You never took it off?” he asks.

“Never,” she answers with a shake of her head.

He leans in, cupping her face in his calloused hands, pressing his lips to her forehead, lingering there with his eyes slammed shut. She still smells like home, still feels like heaven under his hands.

“Until my last breath, Felicity,” he whispers against her skin.

And for a moment, they just exist, finally in one another’s presence—maybe in a way that feels entirely unjust—but together for just one moment longer.


End file.
